Health care providers monitor possible Medicaid cuts

Hospitals in Southwest Florida are on edge as leaders in Tallahassee look to place Medicaid on the chopping block.

A shortfall in the state budget is the reason for the proposed cuts that could total as much as $800 million.

Medicaid is for low-income patients. In fact, 125,000 people qualify for Medicaid in Lee County.

Hospitals with the most Medicaid patients will feel the biggest impact.

When that money shrinks, hospitals must raise other costs. It's known as a hidden tax, and that makes all of our rates go up.

Cyle Rickner, 17, of North Fort Myers, lost his father when he was young.

He was left without insurance and qualified for Medicaid. He, like 70% of the patients at Golisano Children's Hospital, relies on Medicaid.

“I wouldn't have been able to get any medication or see any doctors at all. I mean. I wouldn't have been able to go to the emergency room and wouldn't have been able to pay for it,” Cyle said.

By law, the hospital can't refuse Cyle treatment.

So if he didn’t have Medicaid coverage, they would have to absorb the cost, something hospitals say is already happening.

“The coverage does not fully reimburse our cost. We already shift costs to those that have insurance,” said Mary Andrews of Lee Health.

If Florida lawmakers cut $800 million in Medicaid next year, as proposed hospitals say, private insurers will pick up the cost to keep places like the new state-of-the-art Golisano Children’s Hospital.

“All of us at Lee Health are monitoring these potential changes,” Andrews said.

One independent study predicts families on private insurance would pay an extra $1,300 a year.

Harold Rose is one of those who fears a cost increase could be passed onto him and his wife.

“We get a notice it's been raised and/or they take some coverage away from you. In the end, someone needs to pay the price for it,” Rose said.

So why is Florida in this mess?

The federal government offered the state money to reimburse hospitals for charity care.

The state said no thanks, and that meant they had to come up with state money instead.

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